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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924311">This Side of Paradise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Floating_World/pseuds/The_Floating_World'>The_Floating_World</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amoral Character, Gen, Helen sees a pretty lady and is like, Identity Issues, It's got it all folks, Spiral aligned are always one step away from breaking the 4th wall, Spiral provided ADD, Spiral provided background music, Spiral provided depression, Time Travel, emotional literacy who, eye emoji, mom says it’s Helen’s turn for</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:54:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924311</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Floating_World/pseuds/The_Floating_World</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All roads lead to hell. </p><p>She just wants to have some fun on the way there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Helen | The Distortion &amp; Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Helen | The Distortion &amp; Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This Side of Paradise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I ended up writing this over three days when I should have been reading what feels like a million journal articles.  Hence this ended up being overly indulgent (hence the music) and a bit like a fever dream.  I am not immune to fanon Helen on roller skates and that image popped into my head while listening to “Rock the House” by Gorillaz; you’ll know the scene when you see it.  </p><p>Helen's thinking is fairly cyclical and some things don't really get resolved, but that's how it be. Helen, you were supposed to be purely crack and not end up being a complex character.  This is your fault. </p><p>The fic ended up being 4x the length it should have been, as ever, but it remained a oneshot so I consider that a success!  I hope my submission to the tma time travel genre is at least a fun ride!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>And the base keeps runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Helen is human/is a monster/was never a monster/has <em>always </em>been a monster, and it is quite a headache.</p><p>She lays slumped on her bed, alarm screaming at her to get up and go to the job she hasn’t actually had in years.  It’s not that she thinks she can’t do it anymore; for want of not knowing what else to do, she continued being a realtor as a sort of hobby after she stole the heart of the Distortion.  She’d say she was just as good as she had been before, if not better.</p><p>Satisfaction is relative, after all.  <em>She</em> was certainly more satisfied than she had been as a human bound to the confines of her company and performance expectations!</p><p>She laughs and it falls flat in the air. </p><p>“Boo,” she mutters to herself.</p><p>And how rude of Jon, to land her here in this human body of hers!  Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised that he entered her halls, knowing what it’d do to her, considering everything that had happened.  Jokes on him, though.</p><p>He certainly hadn’t intended on Helen being the one to experience the twisting, horrid miracle of time travel!</p><p>Helen also hadn’t intended on Helen travelling to the past.  Certainly not to a time before she was the Distortion. </p><p>Certainly not to a time she when is human, yet now has memories of being a monster.  With the twisting whisper of the Spiral burning spicy-sweet in her dreadfully mortal mind.  Her body feels weak.  Limp and heavy and much too <em>real</em>.</p><p>(<em>she ignores the tears leaking out of her eyes, past-Helen’s horror</em> <em>of the knowledge of what she Becomes sickening her human heart</em>)</p><p>Inconvenient!</p><p>But still able to be overcome.  Perhaps this pre-apocalypse world is no longer her now favored stomping ground, but there is certainly much to enjoy in it.  The detritus of humanity had largely been cast aside in the future – so much of it created in an attempt to call comfort and joy and meaning into being in an irrational world – and she realizes she missed quite a bit of it, actually.  Decently good music, tv, food, non-horrific sunsets.  Reality TV is certainly still around post-Apocalypse, an actually <em>interesting </em>domain that straddles the Stranger and Eye, but it’s only interesting in the case of human suffering.  And she finds her tastes suddenly diversified.</p><p>Which is absolutely a symptom of humanity.  Gross.</p><p>But there is also potential in a human body, a human life.  Helen isn’t not of the Spiral, but she is also not of the Spiral.  Contradictory and double negatives intwined with is and isn’t. </p><p>Helen is not currently the Distortion.  For all that the Twisting Deceit is not bound by logic and reason, only one personification of the Distortion may manifest, and that is Michael.</p><p>(<em>for now.</em>)</p><p>But insanity sings and trills and screams and bleeds and beats in her.  It rips at her mind and paints the roses red with the past/future.  Is that not the Spiral, that twists away her ceiling until it is miles above her head?  That has summoned the music that coils in her ears, simulating the resting theme of any video game?  That is her heart/that she would gladly rip the inexistent heart out of?  <em>Is that not her god that haunts her and hates her and laughs and laughs and </em>laughs<em>?</em></p><p>But, but, <em>but.</em></p><p>At she currently exists, she is not an avatar but a human.  Isn’t that <em>interesting</em>?  Oh, but everyone underestimates humans <em>so much</em>.  They always clam up so dreadfully around the Distortion.  Suspicious of her intentions, certain she is up to no-good (<em>their subjective good, specifically</em>).</p><p>Of course she loves paranoia.  Breathes it in like an intoxicating perfume, a precipice to madness.  It’s not always what she needs, though.  Being a Deceit is fun because you can tell the truth and no one knows the difference. </p><p>Being trustworthy, however, is so useful.</p><p>Especially when you know the future for the next three years!  And all the big players to boot.  All their insecurities, their struggles, their <em>fear</em>.</p><p>Jonah Magnus’ plans leads to her paradise-hell whatever path she takes.  She hardly had to interfere to get there and see what happened the first time.  Odds are, interfering this time will get her to the same destination either way. </p><p>There’s nothing to do, but to do whatever she wants!</p><p>(<em>The tears continue to fall and she does not wipe them because they are not there.  What is there to mourn?  To weep for?  To gnash her teeth at and raise her fist against?</em></p><p>
  <em>Fate?  Destiny?  All things are possible, and infinite, and twisting, and winding and unwinding.  Apocalypse has come and gone and will come again.  Stopping Elias will delay things or hasten them along or will change nothing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The butterfly effect; chaos theory.  Entropy; the chaos in the universe.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>To be mad is to know nothing is real and anything is possible.  What will be will be, is, never was.  There’s no use in crying over spilled milk that leaked back years into the past.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She doesn’t owe the world anything.  Neither pity nor salvation. </em>
</p><p><em>There is no use for a human heart.  She gave it up years ago.</em>)</p><p>Now she just has to figure out how to move this wretched gravity-bound flesh prison.                                                                                                                                            </p>
<hr/><p>It is not hard to track down the current incarnation of the Distortion at all.</p><p>Helen is/was/wasn’t the Distortion herself, and thus remembers rather more than she prefers of Michael-the-Distortion’s tenure.  The Distortion-before-Michael is rather harder to parse, with no human filter to contextualize its thoughts and experiences.  Rather a big bunch of primordial-eldritch soup (<em>sans a bowl</em>), honestly.</p><p>It doesn’t take too long, relatively, to wade through her not-memories to know the locations he is haunting at the moment.  Now she just needs the little bugger to talk to her.</p><p>Helen taps her skirt-clad thigh with hatefully short and blunt fingers.  She came here as soon as she got off work, seeing as she still seems to be doing that, and had to deal with looking up at one of her clients.   Helen is not a short woman, but she used to be (/<em>was never</em>) taller.  Rather taller than most anyone else, as the Distortion. </p><p>Perhaps not that mound of mismatch meat Jared Hopworth.  But she could be as tall as she wanted, really, so she supposes that’s not true either.</p><p>Either way, she’s stuck as she is at the moment, and heels can only do so much when faced with men that have grown unnecessarily tall.  Which, of course, includes Michael who is currently owner of the Spiral-given Distortion height privileges. </p><p>But that’s not actually relevant and if she digresses for too long her train of thought will disappear altogether.  It is very hard to think in anything but whims as a Spiral-touched.</p><p>Something to get Michael’s attention… but, oh, who doesn’t like music?  Much of it is a privilege of this world that she’s been indulging in anyway.</p><p>Did he grow up around the 80s?  Perhaps he’d enjoy something nostalgic.  She reaches back and strains to find Michael’s childhood, but, <em>well</em>.</p><p>Being the first human personification of the Distortion, Michael Shelley’s timeline is <em>quite </em>a mess.  It’s rather difficult to discern when he lived or how old he was when he “died”.  She supposes she shouldn’t be too jealous, considering she has her own time related trouble now.</p><p>Oh well, nothing for it.</p><p>Helen reaches past reality and twists a knob.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Take on me </em>
</p><p>
  <em>(take on me)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Take me on </em>
</p><p>
  <em>(take on me)</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>A spontaneously appearing yellow door situated incongruously in the alley begins to creep open.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I'll be gone</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In a day or two</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Perhaps he should take that as a threat.  She hasn’t decided yet.</p><p>Seeing him step out of his doorway, more an It than a He (<em>though she won’t give him the satisfaction of that</em>), certainly makes <em>something </em>bubble up in her. </p><p>Possibly homicide (<em>or jealousy or despair or longing or kinship or revulsion</em>).  It’s not like she’s had to identify her emotions in a while.  Mostly she just went with toying maliciously with someone or homicide.  Or a combination of the two. </p><p>“And <em>what </em>are you?” Michael asks, looming over her and appearing like a poorly rendered video game character.  It’s hard to tell if he or the environment is glitching.</p><p>He does not appear best pleased about her existence, which, well, the feeling is mutual. </p><p>Helen bops along to the beat and says, “Not a fan of the song?  But I went with something so safe; are you certain you’re not being contradictory just to be unique?  Hipster isn’t a good look on you, Michael.”</p><p>“<em>Hm</em>,” he says unamused, “I remember being you, though I never was and will not be and still am.”</p><p>Goodness, but he is slow.  He never made a good appendage of the Spiral.  Though, she supposes, that was the point.  Gertrude was quite a nasty customer.  Absolutely badass and ruthless in a way that Helen always appreciates in a woman, but she leaves a bad taste (<em>that isn’t entirely her own</em>) is her mouth.</p><p>“Well of <em>course</em> you are/aren’t/were never/were always me,” Helen says testily, “do keep up.”</p><p>Michael reaches out and twists his hand.  The music stops.</p><p>See?  The man, despite being the Distortion, has never known how to have a good time.  Too caught up in his angst and thirst for revenge.  It’s why she was able to overtake him so easily.  Helen got eaten by then ate the heart of a monster too, and you don’t see her moping about it for years.</p><p>Jon has the same problem.  But she still likes him more.</p><p>(<em>he’s not the one wearing her former/future existence</em>)</p><p>“And I was being so thoughtful,” she harrumphs.</p><p>“It is not in our nature to be full of thoughts.  Is this time not suiting you well?” Michael’s crooning words curl around her ears.</p><p>“Well, it’s no apocalyptic hellscape.  I was doing/will do some of my best work there.”</p><p>“Assuming you shall survive to do so again.  Why would I let you leave alive?”</p><p>“Oh, come off it,” she sighs and flounces into a chair she pulls out of the fabric of time and likelihood, “I know you don’t substantially remember being me.  You have no clue how I became you.”</p><p>He eyes the chair she sits on and cocks his head to the side, “And do you know what you are now?  So human still, yet you remember what you were.  You are not even what you used to be at this time.  How does it feel, for you past and future to no longer exist?”</p><p>“Like the present.”</p><p>He <em>laughs </em>and it is alive and maddening and an echo in unreality and, oh, but she is <em>jealous</em>.</p><p>This being said, it is not as if she has been rendered helpless.  The powers she possesses are quite to her pleasure.  A reflection of her experiences, and perhaps what could have been if she had Become Helen the (uniquely created) Spiral Avatar and not Helen (a version of) the Distortion. </p><p>Take the chair:</p><p>The probability that an item is in this location or in her possession at some point in the past or future is extremely high.</p><p>If she had a coffee an hour ago, why wouldn’t she have one now?  Or if she has one a month from now, why not at this second?  If there was a tyrannosaurus lumbering on this particular now-blacktop patch of earth thousands of years ago, by god, what’s stopping one from existing here now?  Time’s a lie, after all, and she tells the best ones.</p><p>The probability of something existing in the present/past/future versus past/future/present is incredibly slim, and covered in jellyfish.</p><p>Oh!</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Superfast</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Superfast</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I come in last, but just in time for breakfast</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Keep us through, keep us through</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Whatever blue the night, the night throws at us</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Aluminum, I crush for fun</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Aluminum</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>The sea is radioactive</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The sea is radioactive</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The music just seems to be a bonus.  A delightful one, of course, even if it’s simply another thing meant to make her question her sanity and the dubious reality of the world.</p><p>(<em>She does.  But that “reality is a simulation” stuff is old news</em>)</p><p>She’s rather used to dealing in possibility rather than probability.  Or rather, ignoring the word “impossible” altogether.  There’s little difference when it comes down to it in limits so far, but she can <em>feel </em>the difference.  Can feel time and space and how flimsy it all is. </p><p>Not that she couldn’t previously, in a way.  But it simply didn’t matter before.  Now it is her favorite flavor of lie. </p><p>Likelihoods; percentages; statistics; they’re all mutable depending on how you look at them and what you want to see.  People will base their entire lives off of them, and they’re almost never true in a way that can be considered “objective”.  It’s all in the eye of the beholder, darling.</p><p>(<em>hah</em>)</p><p>Numbers are <em>grand</em>.</p><p>And everyone knows time’s a construct anyway.  People just don’t know how to manipulate it yet.  If Helen invents a time machine and gives it to the general public, does that mean the Spiral wins?  The paper-thin veil of “reality” will be quite well and good punched through then.  Collective social sanity is hardly likely to survive contact.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>All hail King Neptune and his water-breathers</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No snail thing too quick for his water-feeders</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Is it quite hard to keep you mind in line, little human?” Michael smiles as he arches over the back of her chair.</p><p>
  <em>Don't waste time!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-with your net, our net worth is set</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ready, go</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Helen feels the incredible need to loom back, but knowing she’ll lose, she resists and stays planted serenely in her chair.</p><p>“I prefer Helen.”</p><p>“Are you Helen?”</p><p>“So much as you are Michael.”</p><p>“Oh no, I think you are rather more Helen than that.  But less than you would be otherwise.”</p><p>Helen does not scowl because scowling is losing, but she knows he can see through her grin as well as she can see through his.  She was he; he will be she (<em>or perhaps they will never be each other</em>). </p><p>We’re all mad here, we all of us are liars, etc. etc.  It’s rather hard to fool someone who is the other side of your coin.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Many know others </em>
</p><p>
  <em>(what?)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We be the colors of the mad and the wicked</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We be bad, we re-brick it with the 24-hour sign</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Well, it’s only as hard as it is to fool yourself. </p><p>“<em>I </em>am bored.  I have plans, so much as I make those, of what I want to do, but it means that I can’t mess with Jon – yes, yes, <em>the Archivist </em>– or Martin or the whoever else is there at the moment, so that I can ace my entrance.  I don’t have anyone else to talk to – do you know how <em>hard </em>it is to remember humans from your past life?  Oh, well I suppose you do – and it’s not like you have anyone to have fun with.  What do you say?  Partners in arguably evil shenanigans?”</p><p>“I don’t think how you phrased that was tempting at all.  You also still seem to be assuming that I won’t simply <em>kill you</em>.”</p><p>His fingers pierce through the upholstery and arc like an executioner’s blade over Helen’s throat.  They press lightly against her skin, the thinnest line of red appearing across it.  Blood begins to bead and slide softly down.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Shower my habits while you dine like rabbits</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With the crunchy, crunchy carrots </em>
</p><p>
  <em>(oh, that's chicken)</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Do you think you liked being finally dead, Michael Shelley?”</p><p>The blades that masquerade as fingers clench down, but wouldn’t you know, the probability of Helen eventually acquiring a titanium neck brace is not zero!  And his fingers are stopped.  Not because they can’t pierce through the metal, but because at this point Helen can admit that the Spiral works in Loony Toons logic as much as it has any at all.  The most ridiculous application of its power <em>wins</em>.</p><p>She whips her arm up and throws the pie in her hands into his (<em>furious/frightened/longing/unintelligible</em>) face.  The - what appears to be banana cream - pie meets its target and he tumbles back in shock, fingers dressed in chair stuffing no longer caging her in.  She licks the cream that splattered on her face off her lips and launches herself into a forward roll.</p><p>She comes up facing the figure looming above the shredded chair, pie tin clinging to his face and arms hanging limply at his side. </p><p>Helen doesn’t know how long she’s been laughing for.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Gotta have it superfast</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“<em>Everybody loves jellyfish</em>,” she mutter-sings to herself, grinning.</p><p>Nothing moves for a moment and she is half convinced that Michael phased out of this reality and she’s only looking at his afterimage.  Then the air <em>shutters </em>and his form glitches, and he is staring back at her with no chair or pie remnants to be seen.</p><p>He stares at her with eyes outside of the color spectrum and says, “I want to kill you more now.”</p><p>“But!  I’m also rather more interesting now, aren’t I?  We’ll probably end up trying to kill or subsume one another, but I’d say we can have a fantastic time together before that!  <em>Come on</em> Michael, you’re just going to mess with the Archivist and his assistants anyway.  Do it with someone who knows the future!”</p><p>She thinks she has a rather winning argument.</p><p>He tries to kill her eight more times that night.</p><p>And innumerable more times after that, but who’s counting?  By the vague numerical value, certainly not her!</p><p>(<em>if nothing else, while it beats rabbit-fast in the moment of violence, it is rather hard for even her human heart to be afraid of something she knows as well as Michael</em>)</p><p>And he <em>does</em> become her fellow colluder in the end.  After all, if there is something that Michael Distortion cannot resist, it is anything concerning the Archivist and their assistant.  He’s rather a vengeful ghost that way. </p><p>Helen was clearly the superior Distortion.  But during the time she allows him to keep this form, it’s only right that the inferior predecessor becomes her partner in crime. </p><p>(<em>it’s not like she’s lonely </em></p><p><em>What does a monster know of loneliness?</em>)</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>'Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do</em>
</p><p>
  <em>One is the loneliest number, whoa-oh, worse than two</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Helen clicks her tongue and reaches out to turn off the background music.  It’s such a bummer.  If appropriate. </p><p>Naomi Herne is so <em>grey</em>.</p><p>Not her fault, of course!  That’s what you get when it comes to the Lonely.  Which she comes by honestly.  It clings to her, grabbing wetly at her lungs and shrouding her eyes in indistinct fog.  She fights it, as you do, but it is in her nature and the nature of her life.  It doesn’t help that she knows not what is truth from traumatic fantasy.</p><p>(<em>and what difference does it make, if it was all in her head?</em></p><p>
  <em>Subjectives and objectives are really all subjective in the end, when it comes down to individual experience.  Honestly, everyone is insane when compared to anyone else.  Might as well go on and assume your experience is as real as anything is, if you don’t want to be paralyzed by existential dread and whatnot.  </em>
</p><p><em>Helen could tell her that</em>)</p><p>Jon’s so sweet, though, making this woman doubt her experiences.  Making her wonder if she’s <em>mad</em>.  Which, in all fairness, most of those who encounter the Entities struggle with, with or without Jon looking at them condescendingly from behind his big ‘ol skeptic façade.</p><p>How curious, though, that she had such a different experience with Jon than this other woman.  What moved him to sympathy with her?  What was so different between her and Naomi Herne?</p><p>Well, Michael, she supposes.  He is the devil Jon Knows.  The whole bit with Prentiss had also happened by the time she met him, so there wasn’t much use in his charade by then. </p><p>(<em>Would it have hurt less if he never offered her kindness and understanding in the first place?</em>)</p><p>How Jon’s future incarnation must revile his past self, knowing he sent the woman right back into the jaws of the Lonely, the Entity that dared to try to steal his own Martin!</p><p>Not that he could do anything about it, anyway.  Jon’s hardly equipped to save people from the Dread Powers.  Particularly when trapped in his own little office horror-drama.</p><p>Naomi Herne takes another step away from the Institute.  Her heart drops a mist seems to rise out of the ground, clinging to her feet.  Her steps stutter and she has a moment of is this real/oh god I won’t get out again/(<em>Evan are you here with me?</em>) before an arm materializes out of nowhere and loops around her own.</p><p>Elbows lock and the thin material of her blouse allows her to feel the thick material of the blazer that covers the offending arm.  She looks up in bewilderment at the smiling woman’s face as she is pulled in her wake.</p><p>Helen is decently taller than Naomi and tilts her head down to look at her.  Now, <em>this </em>is the appropriate height for others to be around her.  Take note other human and non-human entities!</p><p>She is really feeling rather good about this whim now.</p><p>“Want a sip of coffee?  I know it’s in a can, but that’s just how Japan does it,” Helen moves her fingers and turns the glossy can to the side to show off the logo written in what Naomi assumes to be Japanese.</p><p>“Oh, is there a Japanese grocery around here then,” she unthinkingly says.</p><p>“Sure, something like that,” the other woman mysteriously replies as she takes a gulp of alleged-coffee.</p><p>“Wait, that’s, that’s not important.  <em>Why </em>did you- grab me, I guess, and are offering me coffee.  Who <em>are</em> you?”</p><p>“Not a ‘who’, but a ‘what’,” Helen emits an ugly laugh and waves away her own words with the hand clenched around her coffee can, “Hah, sorry, sorry.  Just thinking about a <em>friend</em>.  Oh, but that wasn’t entirely wrong though.  Let me say this: you came out of the Magnus Institute having reported a supernatural encounter, and was brushed off considering the look on your face, no?”</p><p>Naomi tugs at her arm but the other woman’s is iron-clad around hers.  She huffs in frustration.</p><p>“What, do you stand out here all day and wait to call the people who come out of there crazy?  I’ve gotten enough of that from the <em>Head Archivist</em>.  <em>Thanks</em>.”</p><p>“Oh no, no.  You’ve got me all wrong!  You are definitely being hunted by the supernatural, darling, just look at the fog that clings to your heels.”</p><p>And Naomi had actually forgotten about that in her surprise.  Her eyes quickly dart to the ground.  The unnatural fog clings valiantly to her feet, though it appears to be disappearing the longer Naomi walks with this odd woman.</p><p>Is she doing this?  </p><p>“It’s not me, exactly,” the woman replies to the question Naomi definitely hadn’t said aloud, “it’s more your proximity and engagement with another person.  Not something you can see a Lukas doing, can you?”</p><p>“You know the Lukases?” Naomi asks sharply, fear an icy dagger through her heart.</p><p>“Know is <em>quite </em>an exaggeration there; moreso know of.  Not exactly fun at parties, they are.  Bit of a buzzkill, that whole ‘you are alone in the world and nobody will ever love or care for you’ bit.  Can’t really separate that out from the Lukas.”</p><p>“Evan wasn’t like that,” she whispers.</p><p>“And <em>that’s </em>why they killed him.  Or didn’t kill him.  I’m not super clear on exact causes of death, since Jon doesn’t really follow up overmuch on this one since he’s still in his ‘spooky things don’t exist don’t be preposterous’ phase.”</p><p>“You know that arsehole?” Naomi focuses on, leaving the implication of the other words for a later breakdown.</p><p>“Not yet!” she replies cheerily.</p><p>“Right, well.  You still haven’t said who you are?”</p><p>“Oh, Helen works as well as anything!  And this isn’t so much about who I am, but what I <em>c</em>an do for <em>you</em>.”</p><p>Helen throws the empty can behind her and the other woman fails to notice when it doesn’t hit the ground.  She gives Naomi a winning smile that is received with great dubiousness.</p><p>“You see, Naomi, you <em>will </em>be consumed by the Lonely – ah, that’s an eldritch god sort-of deal, along with regular loneliness, I suppose – if you stay as you are.  But you’re susceptible to the Forsaken One because that’s what you <em>are</em>.  How long do you think it would take you to truly open up to someone else?  Longer than you have, I reckon.”</p><p>Naomi’s face is bleached pale as Helen unhooks their arms to spin her around.  She places her hands on the shorter woman’s shoulders and leans in.</p><p>“It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that we’ve had similar experiences, you and I.  Different fear gods, same shite.  However, while I’ve gone the more embracing route, you seem rather set on denying your connection and will subsequently be eaten whole. <em>I</em>, magnanimous mostly-lady-gender’s-pretty-much-whatever that I am, have decided to help you out!”</p><p>“…embracing?”</p><p>Helen <em>grins</em>.</p><p>“I’ll be seeing you around, Naomi!  Don’t be lonely!”</p><p>And it could be worse, to tell the truth.  Helen-the-dubiously-human shows up anywhere from her living room to the grocery store to stalk Naomi.  Well, stalking implies more being menacing and creepy, where Helen really just tends to talk about anything she wants.  Sometimes it feels like Naomi’s on an acid trip, but that just seems to be part of the experience.</p><p>And she always comes when Naomi is at her most lonely.  Though sometimes she doesn’t even realize that until Helen’s presence has begun to warm her from the numbness that has settled her into her bones. </p><p>Most of the time, she <em>hates</em> Helen’s presence.  It crawls like ants on her skin, invasive and prickly when she just wants to be <em>alone</em>.  But she’s doing her best not to be alone, despite everything.  Despite the fact that Helen isn’t Evan, <em>no one</em> can compare to Evan, and she will never have someone like him again.</p><p>But he had saved her.  Helen confirmed it was (<em>probably – I mean, it’s more likely that he was some sort of Lonely ghost than you making it out yourself, which is saying something isn’t it</em>) really Evan that saved her from… the Lonely the first time.  It means that she can’t give up.  She has to fight for herself now.</p><p>So she <em>is</em> grateful for Helen’s presence, in the end.  Even if nobody else seems to ever see her and that might mean that she’s a figment of Naomi’s imagination due to her extreme loneliness.  She’s googled it some.  It didn’t help. </p><p>She’s settled on the fact that Helen clearly has supernatural powers and selective invisibility just happens to be one of them.  She can only deal with breakdowns about going crazy so often when dealing with everything else. </p><p>Naomi doesn’t realize that it’s really she herself that is shielding them from the general public.  Or, the Lonely mists that seep off of her.  Helen can gather it up and drape it over herself like a shawl – which it absolutely <em>hates</em>, the manifestation of the Lonely almost hissing in her grasp like a truly atrocious cat – but manifesting invisibility or selective perception is not one of her (<em>current</em>) abilities.</p><p>Helen certainly isn’t going to tell her.  The whole thing is hilarious and delicious.  Naomi can afford to treat Helen to a metaphysical meal considering she’s saving her from the Lonely and all.</p><p>Also, Helen finds that she has rather higher interaction needs than she had as the Distortion.  Michael is a shite conversationalist and listener.  Naomi is more pleasant on both accounts.  Even if she’d rather throw herself into a paper shredder than deal with human interaction most of the time. </p><p>That is definitely a reflection on Michael, if you were wondering.</p>
<hr/><p>“What do you mean you have Sasha James?  I told you that Jon’s righteous anger against Not-Sasha was one of the only times he was ever fun, or murderous, or murderously-fun!”</p><p>“Why,” Michael asks with smugness (<em>literally</em>) dripping off of him, “would I want anything good for the Archivist?  His assistants aren’t around just for his character development.  If Sasha’s death is the cost of him growing strong, why, it’s just a shame she wasn’t around to pay it.”</p><p>This is what she gets for telling him so much.</p><p>This amalgamation of sentiment and spite twisting into the salvation of one Sasha James, Archival Assistant.</p><p>Or, relative salvation.  She’s in Michael’s hallways after all.  She has fairly good odds, considering he wants to use her survival to stymie Jon’s growth.  But the odds being in your favor can actually be a bad thing when it comes to the Spiral.</p><p>“Why are you like this.”</p><p>“You hardly have room to talk – you picked up your own stray ages ago.”</p><p>“Naomi was not <em>plot relevant</em>. Or timeline relevant or whatever.”</p><p>“Who said either of us were interested in preserving the timeline?”</p><p>“I mean, no one, but I thought it was implicit that I wanted to keep the actually cool things.”</p><p>“Better make it explicit next time.  Not that I’ll care.”</p><p>Helen throws her hands up and writes it off as a loss.  If Sasha James really wants to survive, <em>whatever</em>.  To each their own, she guesses. </p><p>Jane Prentiss has attacked the Archives and Helen has an introduction to make soon.  She’s got better things to think about.</p>
<hr/><p>“Naomi, Michael is the worst!  He’s stymied the progression of the future just to spite me!  And Jon.  But I’m the important one here!”</p><p>“So, you <em>do </em>exist for other people.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call Michael <em>people</em>, dear.  Maybe not even real.  It would depend on whether I think he’d take it as a compliment or an insult.”</p><p>“Wait, did you mean Jonathan Sims, that prick Archivist?  I fully support possibly-real Michael’s actions.”</p><p>“Betrayal, betrayal on all sides!”</p>
<hr/><p>“Bad luck with that Jane Prentiss business.”</p><p>Jon stops midstride and turns sharply towards her.  Helen smiles benignly in response, dressed in business casual and with her work briefcase in hand.</p><p>“What was that?” he asks sharply.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Some of them want to use you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Some of them want to get used by you</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Some of them want to abuse you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Some of them want to be abused</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Helen wipes her hand through the air and dispels the music.  Now that is a <em>bit </em>harsh.  Helen is helping Jon!  She’d like to think she’s rather better than Jonah/Elias, at least, to whom that line is leagues more relevant. </p><p>This is their first official meeting in this timeline; good vibes only!</p><p>Jon takes her hand movement as her waving away his question and becomes even more hostile. </p><p>“Just wanted to express my sympathies about Jane Prentiss’ attack.  Nasty stuff.  Not a big fan of the creepy crawlies myself.”</p><p>“What do you know about Jane Prentiss,” Jon demands, looking torn between stepping forward or backward.  There was definitely a baby compulsion in that.  Adorable! </p><p>It’s even enough to compel Helen to give him an answer, seeing as she isn’t currently a full-fledged avatar, but not enough to make one of the Spiral answer exactly how he’d like, “She’d been mucking about London for a while, hadn’t she?  A woman full of worms isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”</p><p>“Yes, but, no.  How do you know about any of that?  Who <em>are</em> you?”</p><p>That question again.  It would be enough to give a Stranger a complex.</p><p>“Let’s just say, in another life I would’ve been one of your statement givers,” and she really can’t help the smile because she is just <em>too</em> funny.</p><p>“Jane Prentiss gave her statement too.”</p><p>“Oo, astute!  Truly a cutting observation.  But you’re not wrong.  I’m not too different from Jane Prentiss in a way.  None of us are.”</p><p>“Stop dancing around and being vague!”</p><p>“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t be too straight forward.  You see, the monster that has marked <em>me </em>is rather against it.  Fairly opposite to your own, even.”</p><p>“What, what do you mean <em>my</em> monster?” and here he retracts, the righteous search for knowledge receding to let the fear seep back in.</p><p>“Don’t try and tell me you can’t feel it Jon.  The eyes on the back of your neck, always looking looking <em>looking </em>and ravenous for new information.  I’d say you’ve felt it for at least as long as you’ve been Archivist, if not before.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you—” but he pauses, denial tripping on the tip of his tongue.</p><p>“I think that you do.”</p><p>“Just.  Why are you here?  To torture me some more?  Going to stick some, I don’t know, millipedes in me this time?”</p><p>“I already told you I’m not like Prentiss.  Not in that way, at least.”</p><p>“Then what<em> are </em>you?”</p><p>“<em>I am not what I am</em>,” she intones.</p><p>Hm.  That does not seem like a happy feeling she’s feeling right now.  Odd.  Maybe it’s from telling the truth?  That can give indigestion sometimes.</p><p>“…What is that supposed to even mean?”</p><p>“I am what I am, except I am not that either.  I already told you it isn’t in my nature to give straightforward answers.”</p><p>“I didn’t realize I was standing here just to not be told anything,” Jon sneers, rallying in the face of frustration.</p><p>“And I didn’t realize <em>I </em>had to be here at all.  I know the rudeness comes naturally, Jon, but you’ll have an easier time of it if you learn to reign it in.  That said, ta-ta for now!”</p><p>“Wait—” Jon reaches out to her is panic, but she’s already scootering away.  She’s even wearing a helmet in order to encourage non-reckless actions in him.</p><p>A peek out of the corner of her eye leaves her snickering at his absolutely bamboozled expression.  ‘<em>Where did that scooter come from?  Did she always have it?  Am I going crazy?</em>’ are all plastered across his face.  Ooh, but the Spiral-fear of the Eye-aligned really is <em>tangy</em>.  Perhaps it’s not polite to feed on the baby-monster version of your future-</p><p>(<em>acquaintance?  He certainly didn’t want to be her friend.</em></p><p><em>But did she actually want to be his friend after her humanity became whisps on the wind?</em>)</p><p><em>-acquaintance</em>, but Jon hardly has a leg to stand on when it comes to feeding etiquette. </p><p>She wonders how absolutely bonkers he’ll sound when talking about their encounter in one of the ‘supplementals’ he was doing around this time.  Then again, a tape recorder is likely to have popped up on its own to record their meeting. </p><p>Jon had been in his coma for a rather long time and Helen had taken to going through some of his old tapes.  She had felt attached to the Magnus Institute.  For her own connection to it or Michael’s she can’t say.  It also happened to be the nexus of quite a few interesting things.  It was fun to listen to the tapes and get some of the old-time office drama between horror stories.  The Spiral statements were her favorite, of course.  Though that one with the bloke eating paper was wild too. </p><p>It’ll be harder to get her hands on the tapes without her door.  At least until Jon and she become the best of friends.  Of course, there’s a fairly high likelihood that she’ll get her hands on one later, but manifesting something of another Power doesn’t seem to be within her capabilities.  At least for now.</p><p>“<em>Sweet dreams are made of this</em>,” she sings to herself as she scooters down the sidewalk.  She’s using a razor scooter, of course, and makes sure to bloody many an ankle as she goes.</p><p>She’d say that their first meeting went splendid!  Now to make sure the second one goes well too.  She’ll let Jon come to her this time.</p>
<hr/><p>Oops. </p><p>She forgot to tell him any identifying information about herself or where to find her, didn’t she?</p>
<hr/><p>‘<em>hey it’s me from the other day.  U probs still wanna talk about spooky spook stuff rite? U can find me around xxx outside of business hours’</em></p><p>
  <em>‘Also don’t worry about me havin ur # it isn’t even a supernatural thing ur boss just has ur personal # on ur website 4 sum reason??’</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘O I’m Helen btw’</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>It doesn’t take long for Jon to seek her out again.  He’s paranoid of everyone at work – it seems that Sasha’s lack of presence in what constitutes as this reality has allowed the Not-Them to still take over her position – and while she is certainly suspicious, she’s hardly likely to have anything to do with Gertrude Robinson’s death.</p><p>Sure, he’s grilled her about her alibi and tried to catch her out in lies, and her powers certainly make him leery (<em>and generally angry about their irreverently nonsensical nature</em>) but her position as a potential source of information is too tempting to deny.  Apparently, her “atrocious” texting grammar has also cast her in a less threatening light.  Because apparently real monsters must have good grammar to be properly threatening? </p><p>Jon is an enigma sometimes.  That’s probably why she (<em>probably</em>) likes him.</p><p>It’s a constant push and pull between the two for information.  Helen dances around giving him the whole “14 Fear Gods” talk, but she is sure to feed him tidbits someone Marked but not fully an avatar or in contact with other avatars would know.  Some overlying themes, broad stroke categories, vague patron powers, etc. </p><p>Well, okay, a bit more than the average schmuck in that she lets him know that the Institute is certainly aligned with some sort of malevolent knowledge entity.  But the Magnus Institute is also a public organization that’s been around hundreds of years and literally advertises the supernatural.  Knowledge about it is hardly overly suspicious.  </p><p>She even admits to knowing Michael, citing that the same “supernatural force” binds them.  She does preface this by saying that he has tried to kill her numerous times.</p><p>“Yes.  That sounds like Michael,” he says drily, “but, but you can fight back?”</p><p>“Oh Jon, I am <em>very </em>hard to kill.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m here to be semi-helpful in making sure you survive the Archives.”</p><p>“Right.” Dry as the desert.</p><p>He tells her about his suspicions.  How he is <em>certain </em>the person who killed Gertrude Robinson still lurks in the Magnus Institute.  He certainly sounds fairly unhinged as he rants.  The look in his eye when he pauses to see her response tells her he’s certain she’ll tell him he’s out of his mind.</p><p>“All things considered, if something is telling you that someone around you can’t be trusted, you’re likely right.  Your personal conclusions may not always be right, but sudden bouts knowledge that can be mistaken for something like intuition will likely be on the money.”</p><p>And it’s the <em>truth</em>. </p><p>The Stranger among them is certainly not trustworthy, and certainly means Jon poorly.  The truth just happens to also fester Jon’s paranoia into an aromatic bloom.  It will fade soon, since Jon’s paranoia will find itself firmer in the realm of ‘they’re watching you’ Beholding rather than ‘am I going mad’ Spiral, but the point of this exercise <em>is </em>to gain his trust.</p><p>Jon is/will be rather starved for support, as he has yet to let poor Dear Martin close.  He’s desperate for a friendly and relatively suspicion-free face.  Helen is all too glad to step in.</p><p>Although it really is a shame she can’t hasten on the romance on that front.  She has always been cheering on those two crazy kids and it <em>was </em>a bit of a shame that they only got their shite together in time for the apocalypse.  Very tragic-romance.  Which Helen has a bit of a taste for now, but never really did before.  And this is arguably Before.</p><p>Still, she wants/needs Jon to rely on her, and that won’t be nearly so easy if he has another outlet like Martin.   And it will be awfully fun when Martin meets her and is (<em>rightfully</em>) suspicious of her intentions.  He will be very fun to play with, and even more fun to scheme with if she can convince him of her relative harmlessness!</p><p>Thinking about it, seeing a non-Lonely Martin avatar would be so interesting!  Oh, how fun!  She has an obvious bias for the Spiral, but any avatar Martin could be interesting.  Helen’s always wanted to see Martin with a Gun.  Perhaps he could join Melanie in being Slaughter avatars?</p><p>It was quite a shame that Melanie stopped talking with her once she got the slaughter bullet removed.  Perhaps she would do better if she had someone equally adorable to be in a murderous rage with?</p><p>Although, come to think of it, they would more likely be at each other’s throats due to differences in Jon opinions.  Best not, maybe.</p><p>She won’t count it out.  All futures are possible! </p><p>Still, no Martin for now. </p><p>Pity.</p><p>“—But it doesn’t make sense!  Even if they tell me I’m being a crazy bugger.  But you believe me, Helen, and I <em>know </em>you had nothing to do with Gertrude.  That makes you almost like an objective observer, doesn’t it?”</p><p>(<em>Objectives and subjectives again.  Don’t they ever learn?</em>)</p><p>Right, right, she’s meant to be paying attention to Jon’s downward spiral (<em>hah</em>) like a good friend.  Or a good stranger-somewhat-acquaintance-future-friend.  They’re not quite there yet.  Which means Helen doesn’t even need to consider if she should feel guilty. </p><p>“You’ll believe whatever you want to believe, Jon.  However, I can see how you’d appreciate talking to someone outside of the situation.  Consider me a willing ear!  I promise to only distort you words a little when you bounce them off of me.”</p><p>“Yes, that’s… well, that’s more than I could have ever expected otherwise, Helen.  I-I’m happy you decided to walk up to me, even if you could have managed to do be less alarming about it.”</p><p>Through his haze of manic paranoia, Jon manages to smile at her.  Genuinely and reservedly sweet.</p><p>Emotions churn in Helen’s stomach and behind her eyes.  It aches in her molars and burns in her throat and she almost, <em>almost</em> can imagine her fingers sharpen and lengthen.</p><p>Gee, she’s rather good at this friend business, isn’t she?  In the depths of his human snappy doldrums, and she’s managed to conjure up such a pleasant expression.  He hasn’t smiled like this at her since she was a human.</p><p>(<em>You don’t deserve it you don’t deserve it you rejected me you called me a monster when I wasn’t quite yet and you refused to be a monster when I was—</em></p><p>
  <em>Why do you deserve any measure of peace?)</em>
</p><p>Helen often doesn’t know if she wants to help or hurt Jon.</p><p>Probably both!</p>
<hr/><p>And her heart whispers a terrible truth:</p><p>
  
</p><p>(<em>Don’t kid yourself, Helen.  You were never his to save.</em>)</p><p> </p><p>And perhaps she knew that before, and perhaps she was always lying when she held it over him in the future/past, but her truths and lies are so tangled up it’s impossible to tell one from the other.  She can’t remember if it was like that when she was just human.  If it is purely monstrous to lie to yourself to save yourself from hurt, or in order to hurt others.</p><p>But human-Helen and Baby-Distortion-Helen liked Jon enough to save him from Michael.  Or at least, to capitalize on Michael-Distortion becoming too Michael-Shelley and win her freedom by selling her humanity and eating the Fruit of the Tree.  Pomegranate seeds and goblin fruit.</p><p>Still, still, her fondness for Jon persisted post-anima-mortem.  Is that old human her closer to what she is now than avatar her?  Does she want to help Jon like he couldn’t help her, or see him ruined as he saw her ruined?  Of course, the latter implies intention.  Jon only wanted to help her.  Does that matter?  What does she feel, what does she want?</p><p>What is she, who is she.  It’s quite rude that people keep asking.</p><p>She is the hands of a broken clockface.  The swirling, colorful sand of an hourglass with no bottom.  She is playing after the timer has already run down to a stop; a glitch in the matrix transporting her back to <em>00:01</em>. </p><p>She is a Helen that is not the Helen that was and not the Helen that will be.  A normal human that had the shape of a monster stuffed into her in a rather poor fit.  She is what she never was and will never be again.  Helen the human was dead upon entry, and Helen the Distortion doesn’t even exist yet(<em>/may never exist</em>). Past gone and future gone only leaves the present.  Nothing to build off of or look forward to means you’ve got to make everything up on the spot.  It’s enough to make someone go Strange. </p><p>What is there to do in the face of the unsurety, the insanity, the ridiculousness of it all, but whatever she wants?</p><p>(<em>What did she want again?</em>)</p>
<hr/><p>“This house is perfect for someone who wants to build a family in the future,” she says, showcasing the sliding door in the kitchen that leads out to a porch and a lovely yard, “it really is best to live outside the city, if you plan on having many kids.  There’s more space out here.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know about <em>many </em>kids.  Angela hasn’t said how many she wants yet and I don’t want to assume… what’s through here?”</p><p>The creak of a door opening where she’s certain there wasn’t one before.  She turns towards the sound, “no, that’s…”</p><p>And it’s already closed.</p><p>She sighs and puts her hands on her hips, “That’s the fourth this month.  Do you want me to get fired?  I’m trying to sell houses here.  Hard to do that if all my clients get eaten.”</p><p>“I put the one back,” Michael says, sitting on the kitchen counter and picking at his broken glass teeth with a toothpick.</p><p>“Now that’s just outright taunting me.  And I <em>still </em>can’t sell houses if my client has a major psychiatric break.  They’re deemed to not be sound enough to spend their money.”</p><p>“How rude.  It’s their money, isn’t it.”</p><p>“You go argue with the law.”</p><p>“Maybe I will,” Michael says musingly.</p><p>Helen doesn’t encourage him because that sounds hilarious and he may not do it if she seems overly enthusiastic.</p><p>“I thought I told you not to bother me during business hours.”</p><p>“You are not the boss of me, Helen Richardson.  Additionally-”</p><p>“Time is a lie,” they say in unison.</p><p>“But it’s polite to play pretend,” she argues.</p><p>“That is not convincing coming from you.”</p><p>She waves him off and begins to collect her stuff to leave the house.  It’s up in the air for whether or not people will remember Paul existed.  If people do, it’ll be easy enough to get the company computer in her hands and change the records so that he never had an appointment scheduled for today.  Or maybe he cancelled the appointment.  It will be quite a lovely back-and-forth with Angela regarding her memory of talking to Helen and Paul on the phone while he was looking through the house, if she does remember.</p><p>But Angela, are you certain that the stress from your big case isn’t getting to you?  It’s why Paul was going to look at the house alone, after all, that lack of time.  The time angle is nice itself.  Helen’s become rather partial to it.</p><p>“Are you having fun with the Archivist,” Michael does not question, but judge.</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“It would be more fun to drive him to the brink of insanity so that he no longer knows what of his precious knowledge is even true.  Or to stab him.”</p><p>“Quite possibly, but you know that’s not my angle at the moment.  How’s Sasha?”</p><p>“Rather antsy.  I think it shall be quite interesting when she leaves.”</p><p>“Have you decided to not eat her then?”</p><p>“I never decided to or to not eat her,” he doesn’t deny, “But I think it will be much more fun for the Archivist and his assistants to realize the one they now call Sasha James is a lie.  And they will never truly remember Sasha James in truth, now that the Stranger has done its work.  She is quite cross about it.  I hope that she will take it out on her former ‘<em>friends</em>’, but it she seems mostly focused on I Do Not Know You.  She has become less tunnel visioned wandering my halls, but not by much.”</p><p>He has no room to sigh about hyperfixation on something that ruined your human life.  Helen doesn’t mention it because she is feeling tired and not in much of a mood for a fight.</p><p>(<em>she wonders if he guessed that he first took her in one of these empty homes in another time.  If he is pantomiming this abduction over and over and over on purpose.)</em></p><p>“Do you think she’s going to try to escape?”</p><p>“Oh, she’s made escape attempts many times.  Mostly at the beginning.  Then she realized there was little she could do to guarantee she win the fight with a usurper – she certainly can not depend on me,” he laughs and it echoes through her mind, “but it does make the power that seeps and crawls into her head in maddening chorus as she walks and wanders in endless circuits quite <em>tempting</em>.”</p><p>“Going for a ‘time is cyclical’ look?  One archival assistant falls to the Spiral, and so another does the next time ‘round?  You should be careful you don’t mirror the past too closely.  It is <em>my</em> future to Become the Distortion, after all.”</p><p>“Is it?” he asks and is surprisingly inscrutable considering what she just said.</p><p>Irritation flares suddenly in her chest and it causes the flavor of lime to fill her mouth.  She hates limes.</p><p>She leaves the house with Michael laughing behind her.  Or maybe that’s the sound of the creaking of his door echoing in her ears.  Bright colors and curling fingers and a smile that twists through your eyes.</p><p>It’s all the smell of nostalgia to her; old and well-loved and tragic (<em>and a lie</em>).</p>
<hr/><p>She’s relaxing one night with a delicious martini and the Labyrinth playing on TV when she gets a call from a frantic, frankly half-feral, Jon.</p><p>“<em>Helen I don’t know what to do Leitner’s body is here and Sasha- that wasn’t Sasha but she’s still alive, not, not like that Not-Thing said, but she was with Michael and she came back and I think it’s dead now, but then Leitner was there and I left because I just, I just </em>needed a second<em>, and when I came back Elias had </em>killed<em> him and I think he’s planning to blame it on me and, and—</em>”</p><p>“Right-o, that <em>is</em> a lot.  Let’s see what we can’t do about that body first, hm?  You hardly need another murder charge on top of the last.  It could make the police antsy, and we never like it when they get ideas in their heads.  Dangerous business.”</p><p>It rather does make sense that Jon would contact her and not his estranged ex.  Somehow, Helen still hadn’t expected for him to come to her for safety, despite the fact that’s what she’s been aiming for.  Feels itchy.  Bit weird.</p><p>Still, she lets Jon continue hyperventilating over the phone as she croons pithy reassurances in return.  She discards her robe and summons clothing appropriate for a bit of body removal.  Glamorous yet non-descript and durable.</p><p>She arrives at the Magnus Institute with a spring in her step and heads down to the Archives.  She makes sure to give a wink to any cameras that are watching.  She kind of hopes Elias tries to pin it all on her – she must be an acknowledged complication in his plan at this point, though she hardly intends to stop his (<em>kind of sad</em>) god-king gambit – because it would be hilarious to see him struggle with Beholding-recording powers versus Spiral-oh-you-thought-you-could-have-nice-unscrambled-footage powers.  She knows which she’s betting on.</p><p>Jon is hyperventilating in the break room.  Helen can hear this both in first person and by the Bluetooth in her ear.  She hangs up the call and sees Jon startle in panic before she raps on the doorframe.  He looks a delightful mix of relieved and absolutely miserable.</p><p>“Come on, then.  Decomposition waits for no one!”</p><p>He throws up in one of the trash cans.  To be fair, she thinks he’s been holding that in for a while.  It’s probably healthier that he gets it out.</p><p>She follows him to his office where the bloody pulp of Jurgen Leitner’s body sits in its grisly demise.  Jon throws up again in the basket Helen generously provides.</p><p>Wow, that is a body, huh.  Haven’t seen one of those in person in this life.  It is… a lot.  Pretty fucking gross.  An assault to all senses.  Uh, pretty horrifying to this stupid human body.</p><p>(<em>Helen metaphysically projectile vomits across the room</em>)</p><p>Helen physically forces a bracing smile on her face, “help me get him back down to the tunnels, will you?”</p><p>James Bond-style music starts up and threads through the air.  It does not reflect the reality of the situation at all.  Helen feels very made fun of.</p><p>She and Jon are swaddled in enough protective gear to fit in at a disease ward by the time either touches the body.  She provides all the items necessary to make the process as easy as possible, but it is still a bit of a struggle.  Even with Jon not being the most athletic person to hide a body with, Helen is hardly a tiny woman.  Still, Leitner is <em>heavy </em>for someone who lived like a rat scurrying around in a basement. </p><p>They do manage to get the body downstairs (<em>with several unmentionable mishaps</em>) and a bit ways down the initial tunnel.  Helen sends Jon back upstairs to begin scrubbing as she conjures a can of spray paint into her hand.</p><p>In neon orange across wall above Leitner’s body:</p><p>
  <em>YOUR DICK BOSS (ELIAS) IS PLANNING ON FRAMING YOUR LESS DICK BOSS (JON) FOR MURDER</em>
</p><p>
  <em>TO LIKE MAKE HIM HIDE OUT AND FULFILL SOME EVIL MACHINATIONS OR SOMETHING</em>
</p><p>
  <em>IT WOULD BE SUPER COOL IF YOU COULD MAKE THIS BODY DISAPPEAR </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I HEARD YOU NOW HAVE TWO WAY ACCESS TO A CERTAIN DOOR</em>
</p><p>
  <em>HOPE TO MEET YOU SOON XOXO</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Okay, so maybe she’s a bit more verbose than she needs to be and her message ended up partially on the ground around the body too.  So sue her. </p><p>She no longer has easy access to a door to an alternate reality.  She also didn’t have time to google how to get rid of a body and that probably would have taken a while anyway.  Maybe she could have made a swing at reversing time on a living thing, but if she’s going to try practicing necromancy, her first time certainly isn’t going to be on <em>Jurgen Leitner</em>.</p><p>Let’s hope Sasha doesn’t hold too much of a grudge against Jon.  If nothing else, things probably can’t go worse than last time Jon was framed for Leitner’s murder.</p><p>Upon returning to the Institute-proper, Helen is pleased to see that Jon focused all his panic into cleaning.  Helen <em>did </em>google the best ways to get blood out of wood, so they have everything they need for the job.  Utterly uncharacteristically, he doesn’t ask what she did with the body, so she doesn’t tell him.  Helen marks it down to exhaustion, as she’s not even sure he realized she returned.  She can’t say how long it takes them to finish up, but it’s before the next day has dawned.  They quickly change out of their gear and all bloody evidence is gone with a flick of her wrist.</p><p>As she drags Jon, who is two steps above a zombie at this point, she says, “you can crash at my place for the night, but you should really stay with someone unrelated to all this until you’re sure this blows over.  Can’t be me since Elias almost certainly knows about me by now.  I’m sure you will think of someone.”</p><p>Also, she needs her space.  She hasn’t had to deal with a roommate in <em>quite </em>a while.</p><p>Jon does end up reconnecting with Georgie, though without the pressure of a murder charge.  Jurgen Leitner’s body seems to have mysteriously disappear from the tunnels along with her message.  Jon’s still reluctant to be in the Institute more often than he has to, considering his boss popped a pipe in that poor bastard’s ass, but there’s rather more tying him there now than last time he went through this.  With his newly reappeared, vaguely monsterish assistant and all.</p><p>Helen’s not overly surprised when she gets a new visitor not too long later.</p>
<hr/><p>“You’re Helen, then?  About time we met.”</p><p>“I would agree!  I left you an invitation and everything.”</p><p>“With a body.”</p><p>“All the best invitations come with a present!”</p><p>“Yeah, I can see the resemblance to Michael,” Sasha James huffs out nothing less than a <em>grave </em>insult.</p><p>“You come and spout such slander in my own home.”</p><p>“I though you’d prefer it to your office.  That’s where Michael suggested.”</p><p>“So, you’ve got pretty much free reign of those then,” Helen says nodding to the door Sasha had entered through, carefully regulating any jealously out of her voice.</p><p>(<em>It was easier than it would have been months ago.  She hadn’t thought it would get easier.</em></p><p><em>She did not feel relief</em>)</p><p>“Michael and I have an understanding,” Sasha eyes her, “Though I can’t discern the truth of what he’s said about you.”</p><p>“Best to assume they’re all lies.  Except for the lies.  They’re probably the truth,” she helpfully tells her.</p><p>“That’s… that makes more sense than it should.”</p><p>“You were in the Distortion’s hallways for <em>quite </em>a while.  I’m more surprised by how coherent you are.”</p><p>“Michael said something sneering about ‘the Eye’ a few times, but I wasn’t usually… at my best for it.  I gather it has to do with whatever is going on at the Archives.”</p><p>Hm, that’s interesting.  She supposes someone Eye-touched could use it to even out the Spiral’s influence, if they had the sort of mind that could bend rather than break.  But while Sasha <em>had</em> been working at the Institute for years, she had been under the direct influence of the Eye for only a relatively short period of time – and as an assistant to a burgeoning avatar, rather than the avatar itself.</p><p>Really, she thinks Sasha may be better suited for the Spiral than she admits.  When they hit the light in a certain way, the lenses of her glasses warp and shine in a manner reminiscent of a soap bubble.  Helen wonders if she’s noticed.</p><p>Helen leans forward, chin resting on her fist, “just how much of a mad house is it in your mind right now, Sasha James?”</p><p>Sasha’s face freezes for a moment.  But then she <em>smiles </em>in a way that is all too familiar, “you’ll never know.”</p><p>Helen claps in delight.  Sasha smooths a hand over her mouth and doesn’t move it until a neutral expression is revealed underneath.  She doesn’t look particularly happy, but neither is she surprised. </p><p>And fear, well, that’s normal.</p><p>“I didn’t come here to, to talk about that.  I wanted to say thanks, I guess.  It seems like you were helping Jon out.  I don’t know how I feel about… anything, with the Not-Them taking over my life and none of them noticing, but… they’re the only ones who have the ability to remember me now. They’re all of my life that’s left, so I’m happy at least one of them had someone looking out.”</p><p>(<em>a twinge of s</em>omething <em>definitely does not spike in her heart</em>)</p><p>“You’re quite welcome!  I am an angel of mercy come to cure the ills of this world—”</p><p>“I also wanted to say I know the thing that Twists and Lies too well to trust you.  You wouldn’t be what you are if you were only what you say you are.”</p><p>“Takes one to know one~”</p><p>Sasha sighs, “I think that’s enough for now.  If I don’t get back soon Tim’s going to try and fight Michael again, so I should be getting back anyway.”</p><p>Helen calls a parting, “Time’s a lie!” at her retreating back and the door swings slowly shut.  She blinks and is disappears.</p><p>She hums and slips on her slippers to go make some coffee.  She’s a bit disappointed that Sasha hadn’t come with any background music.  Perhaps she isn’t enough of what she will be yet for the music to fit.  She grabs an apple while she’s in the kitchen.</p><p>The door doesn’t come back and Helen is not bothered by it. </p><p>That means something, probably.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Now when the MC rhymin' and the DJ cuttin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want y'all to just get down</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The bright orange plastic of the roller skate wheels roll smoothly over the cement ground. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Now when the MC rhymin' and the DJ cuttin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want y'all to just get down</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The muted tones of the cotton blazer wrinkles as arms pump rhythmically, maintaining a stable momentum.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Now when the MC rhymin' and the DJ cuttin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want y'all to just get down</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Equally bright orange laces whip through the air as feet brace and ankles contort into a graceful spin.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Now when the MC rhymin' and the DJ cuttin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want y'all to just get <strong>down</strong></em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jon shouts as Breekon and Hope reach inexorably towards him. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Tap your toes and clap your hands</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(How many people ready to rock the house?)</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Helen grins and adjusts the device suddenly weighing down her arms.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Come on trace the globe and shake your pants</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(How many people ready to rock the house?)</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The sun shines off of her geometrical, neon sunglasses as she bracingly calls, “What ho, boys!  It’s not polite to not invite a lady to a party!”</p><p>Jon and the Strangers all pause, the dynamic duo looking up at her in perfect synchronicity just in time to see her pull the trigger.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Just twist your hip and do the dip</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(How many people ready to rock the house?)</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>You can acquire quite sophisticated water balloon launcher guns on the internet!  How do they not expect people to use them creatively?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Come on shake and bake do whatever it takes</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Of course, most wouldn’t have the capability to make water balloons filled with acid.  Luckily for Helen, impossible is a debatable term for her.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>(How many people ready to rock the house?)</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Breekon and Hope recoil from the (<em>doubtfully permanent</em>) burns the acid sizzles on their skins, stumbling back from the assault and, consequently, Jon.  Insultingly, Jon also stumbles back.  She had very purposefully not been aiming for him, accounting for acid splash!  They still have to make their daring getaway, after all.</p><p>The launcher disappears into the ether as Helen drops her arms from the shooting position to propel herself forward.  She zips the remaining feet, twirling way from the furious lunge of one of the indistinguishable men (<em>ignoring the tango of terror her heart dances</em>) and grabs one of Jon’s hands.</p><p>She pulls him along behind her, the green roller-skates suddenly adorning his feet luckily making up for his lack of hustle.</p><p>“<em>What</em>,” Jon gasps as he’s pulled in her wake, flailing feet honestly doing more to inhibit their escape than helping.</p><p>“Really Jon, do keep up!  You didn’t <em>want </em>to be kidnapped by the Stranger, did you?  Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.”</p><p>“No, that’s, no.  Decidedly not,” Jon stutters, but grips her hand tighter and begins to moves his legs and hips as if he might actually be in his late 20s and not an arthritic 80s. </p><p>Helen laughs as they begin to go faster now that her companion isn’t a deadweight.  They glide past pedestrians, wind whirling through their hair as they ignore squawks of indignation and surprise.  At least, Helen ignores them.  Jon may have been emitting some of them himself.</p><p>Looking out of the corner of her eye, though, it is not stuffy reservation she sees.  The adrenaline of a near-escape, from what he is only now processing was an incredibly perilous situation, is coursing through him.  It’s making Jon lighter than she’s almost ever seen, making his shouts nearly giddy even as he dreads running into one of the people dotting the sidewalks.</p><p>Helen tugs and twirls them, moving along with the beat in her mind, in the fabric of unreality, and dancing them away from the old future. </p><p>She braces, then slingshots Jon around a group of people.  She sees fear finally triumph over exhilaration in his eyes, his arms pinwheeling as his expression turns into the beginnings of bruise-blue betrayal.  But before he can even begin to turn it on her, she’s back.</p><p>She rolls around the other side of the group, snatching an ice cream cone from shocked fingers, and grasps Jon’s desperate hand with her free one.  He glares sharply and woundedly at her, but she only grins back with a face smudged with mint chocolate chip.</p><p>The sight is so incongruent with the rest of his life – the sudden, unbelievable, miraculous save from something that he is certain would have led to his death is so outside the context of his experiences – that he <em>laughs</em>.</p><p>And why would Helen do anything but join him?</p><p>He doesn’t really stop until Helen pulls them to a stand some minutes later in a semi-populated park.  His laughter is definitely more hysterical than genuinely joyful at that point, but she doesn’t mind.  She finishes off her cone as she eyes his bent over form.  He retains a locked grip around her hand and she holds it firmly back.  It’s the (<em>once again</em>) burned one, she notices.</p><p>Oh.  He’s shaking now.  Probably not too surprising.</p><p>If she felt fear (<em>and she does she does she <strong>does</strong></em>) perhaps she’d be shaking too.</p><p>After all, as she is, she’s certainly human enough to be skinned.</p><p>Luckily, she’s much too fabulous to allow any part of her to be used in the Unknowing.  Ugh.  It’s not like it’ll even work.  She’s got one guaranteed apocalypse, and it was going quite well for her on the whole, thanks.</p><p>Now, if only she could get her terribly unathletic companion to agree with her on that last point.</p><p>She licks the sticky residue off her fingers as she wiggles her other arm to get Jon to look up at her.  It takes a minute, but he manages to tilt her head up to met her eyes, glasses sliding down his nose.  He opens his mouth as if to say something to her, but only succeeds in gasping for more air.</p><p>“We’re really going to have to work on your cardio.  Especially if you continue the trend of running into avatars. Or avatars running into you, as is the current case.”</p><p>She gets no response and decides to swing their connected arms together in lieu of further conversation.  The raised burn scars on his hand rub oddly against her own unblemished palm.</p><p>It’s funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.  A real mind turner there.  Surely a manifestation of madness.</p><p>Then again, it’s more actual individuals directly interfering with and plotting out Jon’s life that’s causing repeating patterns, rather than some nebulous form of fate.  Though predestination is not outside the realm of possibility, all things considered.  But Helen just averted a rather key point in the timeline, didn’t she?</p><p>(<em>Now he will never meet her as she was.)</em></p><p>Past Helen and Future Helen are dead.  Long live Helen.</p><p>And she’s the only one who will ever know.  Well, Michael may have some idea.  But he won’t know that she’s foiled his attempt to kill the Archivist twice (<em>once before the situation even came up!</em>) so joke’s on him.  It’s not like she’s the only potential new Distortion this time around anyway.</p><p>…Hm.</p><p>What is it that she’s feeling? She wonders if she’ll ever be able to understand this heart of hers again.  Her other had been dead for ever so long.  This new one doesn’t seem to know how to bridge the gap between them. </p><p>Perhaps it’s for the best it keeps its secrets.  It does love to say just the worst things. </p><p>(<em>It’s the mind the lies and the heart that beats truly.  Doesn’t it know she has no use for that?</em>) </p><p>But it is not sinking like a stone to her feet this time; it is filled with helium, leaving Helen light on her toes and feeling like a livewire where she holds Jon’s hand.  It leaves her with a smile that might not even be anything but what it is and the feeling she could run for miles.</p><p>She feels grander than grand!</p><p>(<em>Which makes the fear that much more nonsensical.  </em></p><p><em>How could the word ‘happiness’ be so terrible?</em>)</p><p>No past or future to hold Helen down!  She’s a free agent and her product is change!  Apocalypse is come/will come, but why not jazz up the journey a bit?  Expectations are such a bore!</p><p>Being the Distortion is a trip, but it’s also been there done that.  Why go for something already that’s been done before?  It’s a new present; why not make it an interesting one?</p><p>(<em>What was it she felt before, if not happiness?</em>)</p><p>“Up, up, up!” she cries after determining that Jon had been allotted more than a generous amount of time to recuperate and repress his trauma.</p><p>Jon groans and slowly unbends his back, not seeming to share the energy that is nearly buzzing in waves around her.</p><p>“Let’s get you back to your inner sanctum.  You should probably have a powwow with the squad to let them know about the potential kidnapping attempt.  And plan for retaliatory kidnapping attempts for the foiled kidnapping attempt that may be aimed at any one of you!”</p><p>“Oh god, what if they—”</p><p>Jon valiantly attempts to have a serious conversation on his cellphone with someone who is likely Martin as Helen speeds them through London.  She likes to think the occasional shrieks Jon emits provides a sense of urgency to the whole thing. </p>
<hr/><p>Helen’s still rolling along on her skates long after she dropped off Jon at his Archives.  She doesn’t tend to stay long because 1) Beholding sucks and 2) she thinks Sasha and Michael may be starting a turf war there (<em>that Michael is absolutely delighted about</em>) and Sasha is too unsure about Helen to consider her an ally or enemy.</p><p>Which, fair.  Still, she thinks that saving Jon from the Stranger should earn her some points in that regard.  Sasha seems to be trying to use her connection to the Spiral, and rekindling connection to Beholding, to more easily utilize some of the crazy shite they’ve got going on in Artifact Storage.</p><p>Something about hacking into the artifacts of fear?  Which Helen has no clue how you’d go about doing, and it doesn’t necessarily make much sense, but, again, very on brand!  She can always send Sasha Mikaele Salesa’s way (<em>while he can still be found</em>) for brownie points.  Few know how to deal with paranormal artefacts like he does after his tenure as the “Merchant of Fear”. </p><p>Helen hums as she skates backwards.  Wind weaves through his loose hair and billows it around her face.  Parks are rather empty at this point of night, so there are terribly few people to terrorize with mind-bending feats of skating prowess. </p><p>She still does a particularly neat trick that involves a bit of no-ground skating for her very polite lone observer.  The woman stands under the yellow light of the streetlamp.  Her form is a dark silhouette wrapped in a deep colored trench coat.  The hair on half her head is dark enough that it absorbs most of the watery yellow light, while the other half reflects it in a shine of gold.</p><p>‘Hair’ is likely not an entirely correct term for what’s on that side of her head.</p><p>Helen finishes off her trick with a spin, posing right on the edge of the light with her arms up.</p><p>Annabelle Cane obligingly claps, “I suppose the Spiral would be the best for logic-defying tricks.  Though I wouldn’t say that to the Circus.”</p><p>Helen rebuts, “Not unless in fit into whatever machinations you’ve got going on.”</p><p>The other woman’s lips tug in a subtle smirk, “I suppose.”</p><p>Helen has never had much interest in the Web.  It’s too linear; a strict progression in cause and effect.  Carefully laid plans intersecting at right angles.  How Euclidean.  It doesn’t particularly fit Helen’s mode of being or thinking.</p><p>Annabelle Cane is <em>hot </em>though.  Helen has met an awful lot of lovely ladies this time around.  What the hell was she doing with herself last time?</p><p>She heard Oliver Banks is smokin’ too.  Maybe she should run into him next. </p><p>“Do try and pay attention, love,” Annabelle smiles and, my, are those some sharp teeth.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You got me feelin' hella good so let’s just keep on dancin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(Oh!) You hold me like you should so I’m gonna keep on dancin'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(Keep on dancin')</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Damn right, Gwen Stefani.  Only, Helen isn’t certain how far Annabelle goes with that whole “spider” thing.  Black widows do seem like they’d suite her rather well, thematically.</p><p>“Oh, you’re certainly the only thing on my mind at the moment.”</p><p>“I appreciate that; however, I have been talking to you for the past few minutes and I have a feeling you didn’t hear a word I said.”</p><p>Hmmm.  Nope.  She was certainly looking at her lips, and now that she thinks about it, she can recall they were moving, but not a single word entered her brain.  Or if they did, they were twisted into a lovely beat for Gwen to sing to.</p><p>“I’m all ears,” she says and places a pair of cat ears on her head.  She begins moving again, skating circles around the radius of light that envelops Annabelle. </p><p>The other woman doesn’t turn her head to follow the movement, though she’s always looking at Helen when she enters her line of sight, “Fantastic.  I just wanted to have a conversation with you.  Nothing threatening or anything.  We’ve simply noticed that you’ve become rather closely involved with the Archivist.”</p><p>Ooo, the “<em>we</em>”.  Helen has always wondered if “the Mother” is truly so much more proactive that the other Entities.  Or if Web avatars enjoy invoking its nebulous plans to spark that extra note of dread in others.  Annabelle is particularly good at doing so, implying a close relationship to the Web and her position as its vital instrument.</p><p>Who are you playing for, Annabelle?  Yourself?  The Web?  Both?  Neither?</p><p>But it’s never been in Helen’s nature to pursue such questions.  She also promised she’d do her best to not get too sidetracked, and she’s feeling awful obliging at the moment.</p><p>“Ah yes, Jon is my super good friend.  And people have been noticing?”</p><p>“You’ve made yourself rather noticeable.  Today is only the largest ripple you’ve made.”</p><p>Ripple?  In the so-called fear community?  In the Web’s plans?  In <em>time</em>?</p><p>…</p><p>Goodness, but she has been spending too much time with Jon.</p><p>“What can I say?  I like to make a splash!”</p><p>She comes to a stop and Annabelle looks steadily at her.  She doesn’t look displeased, but that doesn’t really mean anything.</p><p>“You’ve got him wrapped around your finger at this point.  It’s quite good work.”</p><p>“Well, your lot doesn’t have a monopoly on manipulation, you know.  Anyone can decide ‘boy, I really would like this person to trust me for completely non-nefarious reasons’ and put a bit of elbow grease into it.”</p><p>“That’s true,” she says and begins to walk away, “Though I don’t know how well your actions will be taken by various factions.  Tread lightly, won’t you?  It would be a shame if something happened to someone as cute as you.”</p><p>“Annabelle, you can’t go around giving vague threats without at least buying me dinner first!”</p><p>The other woman fades into the indistinct darkness beyond her circle of light.  Helen chooses to take the light chuckle that lingers in the air as a positive sign.</p><p>She pumps her arm in excitement then she scrambles for her phone.</p><p>‘<em>I no u almost got kidnapped 2day but a super gorgeous lady just flirted w/ me and u need to b excited w/ me about it</em>’</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Far be it from me to let my trauma dampen your excitement.’</em></p><p>‘<em>Please at least write “know” instead of “no”.  Those are two separate words with distinct meanings, Helen.’</em></p><p>
  <em>‘And thanks again.  For today.’</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>“Helen, a woman with half her head covered in spiderwebs caught me in a café the other day.  I don’t even know why I went into the café – I was already 10 minutes late for work.  I don’t think she had anything to do with the Lukases, though.  Should I be concerned that more vaguely monstrous people have seen fit to bother me for small talk?”</p><p>“Wasn’t she hot?”</p><p>“That’s beside the point.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>It's~ not~ easy having yourself a good time</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Helen lays slumped on her bed, staring at the mile-high ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Greasing up those bets and betters</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Watching out they don't four-letter</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Fuck and kiss you both at the same time</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Her phone is in her hand and she has a million things she could do today, but ennui seems to have gripped her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Smells like something I've forgotten</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Curled up died and now it's rotten</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She’s been thinking of the people she’s fed on in the present.  The people she ate in the past/future.  The people that she’s seen killed and snatched up with nary a blink.  Thinking about whether she’s actually ever decided in this life that it didn’t matter. </p><p>It seems that a certain someone’s agonizing about humanity and all that nonsense has caught up to haunt her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I'm not a gangster tonight<br/>
Don't wanna be a bad guy</em>
</p><p>
  <em><br/>
I'm just a loner baby<br/>
And now you've gotten in my way</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She’s been thinking a rather lot about Jon.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I can't decide</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Whether you should live or die</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Oh, but that is the crux of it, isn’t it?  She still doesn’t know how it is she feels about Jon.  And it’s all about him, isn’t it?  The star of the show.  Harbinger of the end.  The last person Helen cared about as a human or monster – shallow as you could argue it was. </p><p>Though you don’t know what it’s like for someone to validate you and try to help you after having going through something as impossible and terrifying as she had.  Jon was the only light in her world in those moments between leaving his desk and open that wretched/lovely door.</p><p>But she had replaced her heart with the beating throat of delusion so that she could live on in an afterimage of undeath.  No one else mattered.  <em>She</em> didn’t even really exist anymore.  If any of her feelings from before persisted, they had been turned upside down and sideways and grew caustic roses.</p><p>She rather purposefully didn’t help Jon when it mattered, after all.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Oh, you'll probably go to heaven</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please don't hang your head and cry</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>No wonder why</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>My heart feels dead inside</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It's cold and hard and petrified</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Lock the doors and close the blinds</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We're going for a ride!</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>So why does it seem she actually cares about Jon?  That’s what this is, isn’t it?  She needs Jon to like her because because <em>because</em> she wants to be right next to the action because that’s where everything fun happens, and boy it has been <em>fun </em>(<em>and terrifying</em>).  But does she want Jon to like her to meet her own ends, or because she genuinely wants him to like her? </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It's~ a~ bitch convincing people to like you</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Which is a laugh of a question, considering he doesn’t know who she really is just as much as she doesn’t.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>If I stop now call me a quitter</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If lies were cats you'd be a litter</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Pleasing everyone isn't like you</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Dancing jigs until I'm crippled</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Slug ten drinks I won't get pickled</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It’s infuriating, wanting to hurt and help Jon in equal measure.  She doesn’t know which is the lie.  And she’s afraid one side is winning.  It squirms in her, this feeling that is a shade different than fear.  It is not so different than madness.  Or perhaps it is madness:  She does not know which version of her feels what.  </p><p>Does she hate Jon?  Does she want to protect him?  Can she do both at the same time?  But, oh, it would be dull without him.  She hasn’t been without him since she became a monster.  And she still is a monster, if a different one than before, and what would she do without him now?</p><p>It’s rather unfair that he’s left her in such a conundrum as he obliviously texts her, infodumping about hypoallergenic cats after she cited allergies for her aversion to them. </p><p>It is somehow so much easier to talk to Michael, knowing he is dissembling and reassembling the truth and himself between the space of each word.  It is exhausting to engage with someone who deals in truths when Helen hasn’t known what that’s meant since a lifetime (<em>possibly three, if you’re counting in death and transformation</em>) ago.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I've got to hand it to you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You've played by all the same rules</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>It takes the truth to fool me</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And now you've made me angry</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She does wonder what it is the Spiral wants, sometimes.  The Distortion is not a normal avatar.  It is a direct manifestation of the Entity in the human world.  Calling Michael or Helen-Past ‘avatars’ is somewhat of a misnomer.  They merged with a literal aspect of the Spiral.  It is a bit amazing that there was anything left of them at all.</p><p>She did not wonder what the Spiral wanted as the Distortion.  She <em>was</em> the Spiral.  It’s all foggy now.  She can’t hope to begin to comprehend its not-mind as she is now.  It’s all a step to the left and through a prism and sprinkled with parsley.</p><p>It’s not as if she’s neglected to feed it in this life.  She has had no impulse to curb her or her god’s appetites.  It’s not as if human-Helen is stronger than monster-Helen, or some sort of paragon of virtue. Why punish herself for what the vagaries of fate and time-travel have thrust upon her?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I can't decide</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Whether you should live or die—</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>No, she does not want to kill Jon, she thinks.  But she does not understand him either.</p><p>Why do anything but whatever she wants to do?</p><p>If that is something different than what Helen-the-Distortion or Helen-the-Human would have wanted, then she only has to figure out what it is. </p><p>(<em>But, oh, it is hard to be a chimera of yourself</em>)</p>
<hr/><p>(<em>You see, Helen is human and is not human.</em></p><p>
  <em>A human heart and a monster soul.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It is easier to be a monster.  It is always easier to be a monster.  So, she is a monster.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But she is not, because she has not Become one.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why did she not unseat Michael?  She has done it before, and certainly can do it again.  She said it’s for variety, but a lie’s a lie even when it’s a truth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why has she not become another, different incarnate of the Spiral?  She can feel it, burgeoning under her skin, leaking out her ears, just waiting to break free.  A reverse of the darling Archivist’s rather dramatic chrysalis.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yet she is Marked, not Made-Manifest.  Certainty she is much stronger than most Marked have the right to be, and certainly there is a benefit to being largely-human.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But the tears have not dried off her face since she began reliving her life.  They fill her mouth with a salty taste as they leak through the cracks in her smile.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>A life ago she let go of her humanity with fingertips, then altogether.  The man that had tried to help and comfort her before hated her for it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Helen is not the Distortion.  She hates the Distortion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Distortion is not Helen.  It hates Helen.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Helen is not the Distortion or Helen.  She probably hates herself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But what use is self-hatred?  Why not dance through life, no matter what it is you’re dancing through?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And so, Helen is a Monster who does not acknowledge her human heart.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And her heart quietly rebels and bleeds and cares in a way.</em>
</p><p><em>But it is still a monster’s heart, in the end.</em>)</p>
<hr/><p>Puddles reflect the grey sky, a break in the rain not necessarily meaning a break in the clouds.  The cool wind shivers through coats as damp clings to skin and bone.  Everyone is hurrying to get where they’re going so that they don’t have to acknowledge where they are.  It’s a London day, sure as anything. </p><p>Helen would be hurrying along too, seeing as she has a standing appointment to learn how to make those delightful colorful and swirling lollipops, however she was accosted by a rather harried looking individual before she could get where she’s going. </p><p> “Relax, Jon—”</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>take it easy</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For there is nothing that we can do</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Relax, take it easy</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blame it on me or blame it on you</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“—Now tell me what’s wrong.  Full words and sentences; the whole shebang.”</p><p>He approaches her this fine English-gloomy day anxiety-ridden and talking a mile a minute.  Which isn’t necessarily <em>unusual</em>, but she’s not certain what has him in a tizzy.</p><p> Besides, well, everything.</p><p>“I need, I need a way out of the Archives.  It’s just, I’m making things <em>worse</em>.  For everyone.  Maybe if they had someone who could be the boss they need, everything wouldn’t be such a mess.  But I, but I’m <em>trying</em> and it’s not enough.  But I can’t leave because I start to get weak without statements, and maybe it would be better if I was… but… Helen, do you know how I could quit, really quit?”</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>It's as if I'm scared</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It's as if I'm terrified</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>It's as if I scared</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It's as if I'm playing with fire</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Fire is certainly an idea.  Setting fire to the Archives was Gertrude’s route anyway.  But it’s not like Helen wants Jon to die.  She wants him to—</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Relax, take it easy</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For there is nothing…</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>—Precisely!</p><p>Nothing to worry or agonize about; relax and move with the motion of the ever-turning world.  Fear is simply a fact of the life they live.  But there’s no need for his self-flagellation or to throw himself on the coals of his coworkers’ misplaced ire. </p><p>Why can’t he see that?  Why can’t he see that it’s better to see it Helen’s way?  Why is he so <em>convinced </em>that holding on to humanity, that caring about others is the better way to live?  Doesn’t he care that it <em>hurts</em>?</p><p>(<em>Can’t he see that this indecision, that this reclaimed humanity is tearing Helen apart?</em>)</p><p>But he’s not asking her to save his humanity, is he? </p><p>“How to get out of your role as Archivist and out from under the Eye, well… I may have one idea.”</p><p>After all, hasn’t she wanted Jon to play along with her all this time?  To give up his desperate martyrdom and acknowledge they’re the <em>same</em>?  To stop torturing himself and learn to have a good time?  Isn’t that <em>what she wants</em>?</p><p>Him gouging his eyes out is hardly likely to make him fun at parties.  But if he’s truly so desperate to forsake Beholding – and why wouldn’t he be, static and boring and passive as it is – <em>we~e~e~ll—</em></p><p>“Well I <em>have </em>heard that the one way to bump a Dread Power for sure is to become beholden – no need to forgive the pun! – to another.  If you truly think the Institute is so nefarious, it’s surely an option to consider… oh, but don’t look so frightened!  I’m here, Jon, you won’t have to make these decisions alone.  After everything, you seem so doubtful of yourself!  Consider me a second opinion, here to lead you to the best possible outcome.  We’re in this together.”</p><p>Jon stares at her, and is terrified and hopeful in equal measure, and <em>believes</em> in her because who else is there to believe in?</p><p>(<em>And where is the lie for him to catch?</em></p><p><em>Oh, Helen is truly a wonderful liar, to not know her own truths from lies.</em>)</p><p>Her paradise-hell will come or it won’t and why should she curb her actions for a future she’s already forsaken in a million little choices?  Jonah/Elias may do as he likes, but no one ever said he had to do it with Jon.</p><p>Or maybe he will!  We’re in uncharted territory after all!  But oh, she does not think <em>anything </em>will be the same.</p><p>Helen grins and in silent cacophony laughs and laughs and <em>laughs </em>and reaches her (<em>human</em>)(<em>monstrous</em>) hands into the tangled weave of fate and chance—</p><p>And gleefully <em>twists it</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin’ and</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Will there be Spiral!Jon?  Will Martin or someone else become the Archivist? Will there be some distinct blaming in the future (with Helen getting busted in her machinations)?  Will the fear apocalypse still happen?  Will we be preforming time necromancy on Gerry’s skin page?  All possibilities!  The possibilities are endless and varied, and most probably don’t end in places much better than canon.</p><p>As a side note, when I wrote that Jon is “the star of the show” my brain flipped to “the Guy Who Didn’t like Musicals” from Starkid.  Jon could absolutely be Paul, with Martin as his Emma.  But then I thought of Elias as his boss singing longingly about Peter choking him out, as Jon sits awkward and wretched in his little chair, and I cracked tf up.  The ending w/ Paul and in general is even pretty TMA appropriate! </p><p>Music in order of appearance:<br/>“Let’s get it Started” by the Black-Eyed Peas (for the very beginning and end)<br/>“Take on Me” by A-ha<br/>“Superfast Jellyfish” by Gorillaz<br/>“One is the Loneliest Number” by Three Dog Night<br/>“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by the Eurythmics<br/>“Rock the House” by Gorillaz<br/>“Hella Good” by No Doubt<br/>“I Can’t Decide” by Scissor Sisters (which probably fits this Helen (and her relationship with Jon) the best)<br/>“Relax, Take it Easy” by Mika (which I think is a fun TMA song generally)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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